(no subject)

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Windows forces core updates without user consent


Privacy issues and big brother freakouts aside, this is shitting me up the wall because I want to know how the hell it's going to affect WSUS.

We have 2k3 servers that roll out updates. However, the main machines are xp/2k and are enforced by a GPO ONLY to seek and accept updates from our 2k3 servers. We have a proxy server and denied external net access to most staff, so they can't even sneak do it.

So if you can't manually invoke these bastards as the article suggests, and it's fuckin' well not allowed via WSUS and if the spin of "Unless the update is installed, Windows Update won't work, at least in terms of searching for further updates." is true....Then I've got 300 machines here that are stuck in stasis.

Bastards.

Calm down, people

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand that your satellite location is having internet issues. We're working on correcting those today. Their office is below ours and we have staff buzzing like bees to upgrade your connection and get your download/upload times to a more acceptable speed.

That does NOT mean that the Blackboard upgrade that is in the works needs to happen OMG right NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW!!!!

The two issues are unrelated. I am not working through the steps of this update process any faster. These issues are unrelated.

Calm the fuck down.

-Sincerely
The tech who was dumped with this project last week after your in house tech person decided to take an extended hunting vacation and has never looked at Blackboard before in her life. I hate doing major upgrades remotely.

Tech Related Question... sorta.

[liber-cogito.livejournal.com]

I'm starting college in Jan. My question is... based on job experience, life experience, whatever...

What the hell is the difference between a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science Information Technology and a Bachelor of Science Information Technology?

The University's website says that the BS is for getting jobs in the first place, whereas the BSASIT is for job advancement... but the BSASIT seems to have more actual major related courses.

So, I guess my question is, what is your job title, and what degree, if any, do you have?

x-posted places.

Is power that difficult to master?

[sdanks.livejournal.com]

We got a call to our heldesk that a computer would not come on anymore.  Since she was just around the corner, I told her I would be right there.  I walked over and she said she had tried turining it on and could not get it to do anything.  No lights.  I asked her (as experience has taught me), what was she doing just before it stopped working.  She said that all the power cables were tangled, so she unplugged all the cables and used bread wrap twist wires to wiretie them all together.  So I crawled under the table to take a look.  At first glance I thought something must be unplugged, but all the cables were plugged in.  I reseated the other ends into the computer and the monitor and then tried the breaker on the power strip.  It was then that I discovered that she had unplugged everything and plugged it all back in. . . .plugging in the power strip to itself.  I showed her how it would work better if the powerstrip were plugged into the wall.

A few months later, she called again and her computer was "Stuck".  She said the same thing kept coming up on the screen.  So I asked her to power cycle it.  She said she had just come back from her break and had left it off for over 10 minutes.  It came on, but the same thing was on the screen and it was still stuck.  I thought it might be stuck at the bios, but when I got there she reached down and showed me that it was still there by turning it back on.  I pointed out there there was also a power switch on the computer and not just the one on the monitor that she was turning on and off.  She hung her head and told me I could go now. . . .

Obscure software requirements

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time I was the senior (and in the beginning of the company, only) administrator for a small town's first ISP. Until we hired more staff, I had to do a little bit of every job, including sales.

I got a call once from an older gentleman, wanting me to explain what he could do with the Internet. I gave him our usual sales pitch about email and the then-new World Wide Web, and about five minutes into it I got the following question:

"Oh, so I'd need to get a computer then?"

weird

[heidl.livejournal.com]

i'm working in a big company in austria in the IT departement. we're only supporting in-house. no external customers. only co-workers.

4 years ago some notebook of our company got lost in france. it has been stolen out of a train cabin.

4 weeks ago some romanian guy named stefanescu sent us an email to our internal support mail address. he sent us an email and told us he bought some notebook and found a sticker on it's back with our service email on it and now he wants us to help him setting up windows xp on that machine.

we kindly answered and asked him where he lives, so we can send him a tech to look after the problem.

i think french/romanian police is currently planning further actions...



it's a small world :)

When headhunting goes bad...

[spiker-uk.livejournal.com]

(obReminder: systems guru at major UK university)

So... a couple weeks ago, I get one of the fairly usual emails from a headhunting agency, telling me that Mr. Headhunter had got my name "by recommendation as a very strong computer scientist", and promising me untold riches with "some leading Investment Banks ({namedrop} {namedrop} {namedrop}) and Hedge Funds ({namedrop} {namedrop} {namedrop})". Unfortunately for him, I'm actually fairly happy in my current job, and so I ignored his email and left it in my inbox.

Today, a friend of mine got around to responding to the same email... and a colleague of mine, who works in the same group as I do but is a hard-core hardware tech and oh-so-very-NOT a computer scientist, also got the same email.

Anyone else's Spidey-sense tingling yet?

( Why, it sure is, Peter Parker! )